Watch: Natalee Holloway’s Father Reveals New Twist That Has Him Hopeful For 1st Time In Years

A new lead in the Natalee Holloway case could bring closure to her father, Dave, who has been searching for his daughter for over a decade.

Natalee first disappeared in 2005 while vacationing in Aruba. It is widely believed that Dutch national Joran Van Der Sloot was responsible for her disappearance. While a body was never found, Van Der Sloot was convicted by a Peruvian court in 2010 for the murder of another woman, Stephany Flores. Natalee was declared legally dead in January 2012.

Speaking to CNN’s Martin Savidge recently, Dave Holloway said he got a tip from a man named Jurrien de Jong, who claims he saw the incident occur on May 30, 2005, the night Natalie first went missing.

He says that a car pulls up and Joran and Natalee get out of the vehicle. This is on May 30, (2005) and this vehicle pulls into the parking lot at the Marriott hotel, and you can see a construction site and you can see the Holiday Inn … and this area is enclosed with a chained fence. He says that Natalee says,

‘Well the gate’s locked,’ and (Van der Sloot) says something about, ‘Well I know a trick,’ and somehow he, I guess, unwraps the chain and they go in.

“Then he sees them go across the construction site, and they get up on the platform, which I presume to be the foundation of the Spyglass Tower, and they run up to an area that’s got half of a stairway built and they go up that and he loses sight of them,” Dave continued.

Then, approximately five minutes later he says they emerge with Joran carrying Natalee in his arms and apparently he knew that she was not living. He put her down on the concrete slab and then jumped down off of it and put her body down on the ground and then went and dug an opening under the slab and then put her body in it and then covered it back up and walked out.

Savidge asked Holloway about Marriott’s contention that there was no construction in the vicinity during the time of the murder. But Holloway noted he was there two days later on June 1, asserting that “there was definitely construction in that area” due to the fact “it was all chained up.”

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“And that’s one of the areas we never searched because we assumed it’s locked up and secured at all times, and they have construction workers there on site. It was something we assumed that that would never need to be searched and it wasn’t,” Holloway said.

After trying to determine the credibility of de Jong’s story, Holloway enlisted the help of private investigator T.J. Ward. Ward called Holloway back several days later, informing him de Jong passed a voice analysis test.

Holloway said that even though de Jong’s story might have some credibility, he’s not going to get his hopes up.

“We had the opportunity about three weeks ago to go to Aruba and check this out and we did with a cadaver dog. We were kind of blocked in the areas that we wanted to do the search so it was kind of a failed mission I guess, so to speak,” Holloway said, adding that he wants that area searched by a dog.

Holloway concluded by telling Savidge he will never stop looking for Natalee. “I mean, your child is off in a foreign country and you want to bring her back home, and I’ve got the means and the ability to go down there and check and do it, and if I’m willing and able to do it, then I always will,” he said.

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